


the devil wears a suit and tie

by deluxemycroft



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deluxemycroft/pseuds/deluxemycroft
Summary: Every other Asgardian gets a soulmate. Only one. Loki has had four, and they have all left him. He knows now that no matter how deeply he loves him, no matter how much he hopes and wishes and prays that they will not leave him, he will always be alone in the end.





	the devil wears a suit and tie

The first time is special. 

So is the second time, and the last, and every time in between, but the first is special. 

He has been waiting for his soulmate all his life. He is greedy for it, desperate for the only person who will understand him, the only person who will even _try_ , the one and only thing he has that is completely his and can never be taken away. 

His name is Stefan, and he is a broad shouldered Vanir soldier, and he is absolutely lovely. He catches Loki’s eye from across the room, and Loki sits back in his seat up at the high table, and he swirls his wine in his cup and he watches. He is part of the Queen’s guard, loyal and tested and true, and Loki considers buying him or renting him or stealing him and after listening to his mother gush about the Queen’s good graces, he finally decides to just speak to her.

He was so naive, back then. 

But Stefan is his soulmate, and the soldier even agrees to feeling the bond between them, but the Queen says no, so he bows to Loki and steps back and gives him an apology with his eyes. And Loki is shocked—him, being denied what is his? But this soldier belongs to him, they are meant to be! How can she keep him?

But because he is young, because he is naive, he lets Thor herd him away. 

He lets his brother, dear, sweet, simple, caring Thor, ply him with wine and mead until his head is spinning, and he whines out his grievances, because even if Thor does not understand, he will listen. He always listens. And Thor nods and thinks and calls over the Warriors Three and Sif and the six of them come up with a plot and a plan. 

It does not work.

The next day, fire giants attack. 

Stefan dies.

Loki had been struck by a great ball of fire and he was shrieking, and Stefan had left his post at his Queen’s side to kill the giant responsible. But he had died in the process. 

Loki feels like he should have died with him. 

But the first one is special. 

In the dark, he remembers Stefan. He remembers those broad shoulders, those warm blue eyes, that sad smile when the Queen had denied him. He lays out in his mother’s garden and he feels ice creep around his heart. 

He has nothing left. The only thing that was ever meant to be his, gone. He had one fleeting chance, and he lost it. 

Loki is young. He is angry. He feels betrayed by fate and the Norns and by his own foolish heart. 

But above all, he is sad. 

He presses his face into the grass and he weeps.

* * *

The second time is no easier. But she is beautiful, and she has the same blue eyes. 

They call her Sev. She moves like the wind and her hair is long and she is always laughing. 

She looks at Loki no different than she looks at anyone else: not at all. So she does not know him, not the way he knows her. 

She is part of a visiting council from Alfheim, and she has the same pointed ears and grace as the rest of the Alfar. She dances and she laughs and Loki watches and his chest hurts because she is so beautiful and all he can see is Stefan, charging down a giant. 

She asks him for a dance. 

He says yes, because he is young, and he is naive, and she is kind to him. 

She is to be his, he thinks. Finally, he will have something of his own. 

But she does not recognize him, not even with their hands intertwined. She is very kind to him, and often asks to listen to him read aloud to her, and seeks him out, but she does not know.

He learns later, far later, that Alfar do not have soulmates. 

Sev was never meant to be his. She takes his heart away five years later when her council departs back home. 

He hides in the dark for a very long time.

* * *

The years pass, as they always do. He grows more alone and more used to it. His brother shines ever brighter and Loki grows ever dimmer. 

Bitterness festers in his heart when Odin gives Mjolnir to Thor. She was meant to be his. 

Nothing is ever meant to be Loki’s, he realizes. Everything will be taken away. He only has himself. 

He almost misses out on his third encounter with his soulmate because he is so bitter and so tired and so full of hate that he feels like it will all spill out of him like a boiling pot. So he hides in his rooms and studies and schemes. 

But she finds him. 

Her name is Sigyn, and her hands are strong and she reaches in between Loki’s thighs and brings him to orgasm faster than either himself or anyone else has ever managed before. 

Her eyes are a bright, bright blue, and when she smiles, the sun rises. 

He has already moved out of the palace, into a castle on the other side of the great woods, where he cannot see everyone fawning over his golden brother and cannot hear everyone ridiculing him for his schemes, and she moves in with him. 

She speaks little.

He talks enough for the both of them. 

When she does speak, she is so smart and sly that it takes Loki’s breath away. She is fast with a sword, and she knows no magic, but she does not mock him for using it. She only makes him cook for her.

He would do anything for her. 

He thinks she is the one he will be allowed to keep. Has he not suffered enough? He has been left behind twice, and abandoned by those who claimed to be his family. Does he not deserve this? How does he not deserve her?

He gets forty years. 

Every single one is bliss. 

There is no ice around his heart with Sigyn around. She makes him laugh and she pulls him outside when it rains and she even indulges Thor when he comes around. She is so very kind to him. 

He indulges her with every breath he takes. He brings her flowers and jewels and delicious morsels and has bards recite poetry and plays for her and he gives her everything he can think of and more. 

She dies. 

It is a slow death, which makes it all the worse. 

His potions and his spells do nothing. She is not stable enough for transport to the palace, and none of the healers are answering his frantic calls for help. She suffers because of how detested Loki is. If she loved someone better, she would not have died. 

Perhaps, he thinks, as he brushes his wife’s golden hair back from her face, this is the type of soulmate Loki gets. He gets one small bite at happiness and then it is all whisked away. 

What else does he deserve?

He kills the snake that bit her with great prejudice. It is a quick death, but it is painful. He crushes the animal between his hands until it is dust. 

Only Thor comes to her pyre. He stands next to his brother and watches his wife go up in flames. 

One day, his ashes will be mixed with hers. One day, they will be together again.

* * *

His fourth soulmate is a dwarf. His name is Silas. He is the only dwarf that Loki has ever seen with blond hair and blue eyes, and he is hammering away at a shield when Loki touches down on Nidavellir. He glances around the busy workshop and ducks whatever object that Brok and Sindri throw at him while going over to butter them up about creating another weapon for him. 

But blond hair catches his eye, as it so often does. 

Silas is quiet. He is more interested in his weapon-making than he is in Loki, but his eyes follow him as he flits around the workshop. Brok finally relents that they’ll make Loki a new spear, and Silas says that he will help, that he’ll make the handle. But he has a price: a kiss from the prince. 

Loki, of course, refuses. Soulmate or not, he will not kiss a dwarf!

He ends up getting fucked over a bench instead. He gasps and whines and Silas bites down on his back and his shoulders and grumbles into his neck about taking so long. He would not have taken so long to find him, Loki argues, if his soulmate did not seem to consider death to be preferable to spending time with him. 

Silas fucks him until there are no more words in Loki’s mouth. 

He spends nearly a decade on Nidavellir. 

He learns a great deal. Uru is a very difficult metal to mine and shape, and the dwarves have made an art of it. Silas plies his favor with various pieces of fine jewelry and weapons, from spears to throwing knives to Loki’s favorites, small blue daggers that are tied to his magic. 

His soulmate is so different than him. He is all light where Loki is dark, strong where Loki is weak, and he is so very, very brave. 

He dies defending a child. She was being picked on by older dwarves, for a reason Loki does not even know, and when Silas steps in, they turn on him like rabid wolves. 

It is over so quickly that Loki is not even capable of movement. The dwarf-girl cries out and her parents find her and she is kneeling next to Silas’s body and Loki screams, falling to his knees, crawling to his dead soulmate. He gathers Silas in his arms and he hugs him to his chest. 

His heart is torn in two. He is so very, very alone. 

Every other Asgardian gets a soulmate. Only one. Loki has had four, and they have all left him. He knows now that no matter how deeply he loves him, no matter how much he hopes and wishes and prays that they will not leave him, he will always be alone in the end. 

He burns Silas next to Sigyn. 

Thor does not come. Loki does not ask. 

He huddles alone next to the graves of his soulmate and he thinks: _I will not let this kill me. I will be stronger. I do not need to be loved. I only need my books and my spells and my magic and I do not need a soulmate._

He says it so many times he almost begins to believe it.

* * *

He moves back to the palace at Thor’s request. His brother found out about Silas and hounded Loki until he gave in. 

Really, even as his brother makes his skin crawl with hatred, Thor is the only one that cares about him. 

If he has a soulmate in the next few hundred years, Loki does not meet them. He spends time with his brother instead. He trains with Thor and goes on hunting trips with him, just the two of them. He revels in Thor choosing him over his friends. He spends more time with Thor than he does by himself. 

Thor flourishes with Loki’s attention. He has always loved his brother best, but Loki has always been desperate for affection but runs when he gets it. 

Thor does not die, which means that Loki loves him enough. He sometimes feels overwhelmed with it, with affection towards his oaf of a brother, but Thor takes his peculiarities in stride, as he always has. 

But things change, as they must. 

They are pulled apart. Thor begins his training for taking the throne, and while Loki can take the classes if he complains enough, it’s obvious that they are geared towards Thor. Thor just shrugs—what can he do? He’s just doing what he’s told. But Loki seethes. Their father tells them they are both meant to be kings, but Loki is not allowed to learn about the kingdom? He has to scrounge up knowledge from the depths of the library. He has to beg and plead for lessons that are given to Thor freely. 

It pulls them apart. 

Thor does not seem to notice any difference. 

Loki seethes. 

He begins to plot and plan. 

Sif, with her lovely yellow hair and her dark eyes, always watching Loki like he is up to something. Which he is, but she needn’t concern herself with what a prince is doing, being a warrior as she is. 

He feels as if her yellow hair is a taunt. It becomes all he can think about. Everyone who has ever loved him has been blond. But Sif despises him. 

When she sleeps with his brother after a night of revelry, it is the last straw. He cannot handle her mockery of him any more. Thor has always been his, has always loved him best, and he is so weak he falls to Sif’s wiles after only a few bottles of wine? 

He slips into Thor’s room and cuts off all that long yellow hair. 

Thor accuses him the next morning. He refuses to take responsibility. Sif is convinced he did it, but Loki begs Thor to believe him. 

In the end, because Thor loves him, Thor sighs and believes him. As a gesture of goodwill, Loki escapes to his castle and finds a gift that Silas gave him, a wig of flaxen gold. He pets it in his hands for a long time, and with his magic, turns it black. 

He gives it to her with a shrug. The best he can do. 

Thor wraps him in a hug and Loki curls up against his brother, watching Sif with dark eyes. He tips a glass in her direction and leans against his brother as they feast. 

She hates him. At least the only blond hair he has to look at on a daily basis is that of his brother’s.

* * *

His next soulmate is a frost giant. 

He has no hair and the palest red eyes. But his skin is the color of the bluest sky, and his shield is yellow. 

Loki sees him across the battlefield and he stumbles.

Thor kills him before Loki can learn his name. 

He cries out and turns on his heel, appearing back in his rooms in Asgard’s palace. He cannot even burn his soulmate, he cannot even mourn him. He was _taken_ from him. His great brute of a brother took, as he always takes. 

Loki hisses because he cannot let himself cry and gathers his belongings. He cannot stay here. 

He runs back to his castle. He sits at the graves of his soulmate and he closes his eyes. He will live here, with the memory of those who loved him. If this is all he is given, he will take it. He will take the paltry gifts of his short times with those who loved him. 

In his mind's eye, he sees a man. He is tall, and he is strong, and he is kind. He has blond hair and bright blue eyes, and he reaches out for Loki beyond the dimensions. He carries a shield. He sees Loki for who he truly is and loves him because of it. 

Loki curls up on the graves and sobs.

* * *

He ventures beyond Asgard. He long ago found the paths between the worlds, the paths that even Heimdall cannot see. 

His body grows weary with walking. He wears through two pairs of boots. But he still goes through the realms. 

He finds himself on Midgard. 

He stands on a great expanse of ice and looks around. He pulls his fur cloak closer and steps forward. 

He walks for a very long time. He sees nothing except great horizons of ice and snow. 

In the distance, he sees a strange machine fall from the sky. 

He turns his feet towards it and runs through the air. It does not matter if this is a machine come to kill him. He is so very tired of being alive and so alone. 

It is a peculiar machine, but it is shattered to pieces. 

There is a man in the ice.

Loki watches him sleep. He creates a cave of ice around them and conjures up a fire, pulling food and furs out of his pocket dimensions. He is so very tired. 

He creates a small nest for himself made of furs and curls up in it, wonders if the man will be awake when he wakes up. 

He is. 

His name is Steve, and he looks at Loki like he is the most beautiful creature in the entire galaxy. 

He tells Loki of a great war, the war to end all wars. He tells him of his friends who are surely looking for him. 

Loki stays tight lipped for the first year in the ice. Steve asks him questions and does not seem offended when he doesn’t answer. 

Loki meets his eyes one day and they are so very blue. 

His soulmate touches him with kindness. 

One night, Loki presses him back into the ice and straddles him. He is so warm inside of him, his hands on Loki’s hips, his mouth hot on Loki’s lips. Loki loves him so fiercely that he cannot breathe for it. 

The next day, he leaves before his soulmate can leave him. 

Steve stays under the ice. He does not die. 

Loki loves him regardless.

* * *

There is no more time for soulmates. Thor is going to be crowned King, and he is cruel and selfish and he is not fit for it. 

So Loki schemes. It is a poor plan, but it will stop the coronation. 

At the end of it all, he has his wish. Thor is not King. 

Loki falls. 

When he is dragged before Thanos, he knows that there will be no more soulmates for him. His very soul has been burnt out of him. 

He takes the Scepter and goes to Earth.

* * *

He sees Steve and everything changes. 

He drops the Scepter and lets them take him. 

Steve puts the handcuffs on him and watches him carefully, something strange in his gaze. 

When Thor comes for him, Loki does not fight. He is so very tired of fighting. He tilts his head into his brother’s chest and he thinks: _If I am to die, at least it will be at Thor’s hand. It will not be painful if it is my brother._

They decide to keep him on Earth. 

They keep him in a dark cell. He lays back and remembers. Fear grips his heart whenever he remembers Thanos, remembers that the Titan comes for him. 

Someone taps the glass and Loki looks up.

It is Steve, the man who loved him quietly and kindly in the ice. Behind those eyes, he sees the ones that came before, the ones who held the same soul that Steve burns with so brightly now. 

He turns off every camera and Loki pushes to his feet. He will let his soulmate kill him. He deserves nothing less, and he will fight, but he will let Steve live. He knows that humans have soulmates, but they can live without the other halves of their soul. Loki has limped by by himself for so long. He is so very tired.

Steve steps inside his cell and he carries no weapon. Loki lifts his chin. He can feel those hands around his neck one last time as Steve kills him. He can feel complete with those hands on him one last time as the great Captain chokes the life from him.

Steve asks why.

There is no answer for him, nothing satisfactory. He does not even know what Steve is asking. So he smiles and watches as Steve comes closer.

He left him in the ice, Steve tells him. He remembers. He remembers being so very alone when he woke up and that Loki was nowhere to be found, that the SHIELD scientists told him that Loki was a dream. Something that his subconscious drummed up during those 70 years under the ice.

Loki watches his hands move. Steve is so very grounded. He does not shake. He plants himself and demands answers. But there are none to give.

He thinks that Steve will leave if Loki does not give him what he wants. But he does not. He pulls up a chair and watches Loki waver and then collapse in the bed.

He is still there when Loki wakes the next morning. There is a riot outside, of Thor and the man in metal arguing. Loki looks at his soulmate and looks through the glass at his brother and he thinks if there is a time to die, it is this.

His soulmate comes close, sits on the bed next to him. He remembers Sigyn in the way Steve reaches out for him, Silas in the roughness of his hands, the nameless frost giant in the blue of his suit. So much has led up to this. He moves with Sev’s gracefulness, is every bit as powerful and fearless as Stefan. But this one will be taken from him. 

He does not reach back.

He closes his eyes. He hears Thor bark his name and resentment fills him so quickly and so darkly that he chokes on it. 

Steve’s hand settles on his neck and he cannot stop himself from stiffening. He knows he will fight, but he does not want to. He wants to die in peace.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Steve promises.

Loki looks at him.

* * *

When Steve touches him, it burns a fire under Loki’s skin.

He tried to stay away from him, but he is pulled towards him like a moth to a flame. Loki is on fire. He thinks it apt, a frost giant set aflame by a human. 

Thor stays with him. Loki stays in the cell, and Thor takes a cot outside.

It takes a very long time, but Thor eventually gets the story out of him. Once he begins to talk, he cannot stop. He tells his brother of those that came before, the soulmate who took so many forms and who always left him. His breath hitches and he hides in the dark, because Steve is human and he will leave in the end. He is weak.

But for all his faults and all his cruelty and all his weaknesses, Thor loves him, and believes that he can be loved by another. He sees affection in Steve’s gaze, affection that stems from his own history with him and also having known him in so many other lives. He is the only thing in the world that is Loki’s and Loki’s alone, and soon, he will be dead, like the rest.

So Loki turns away from him, and the only place to turn is his brother. But Steve does not leave, being as pulled to him by the soulmate bond between them as Loki is ruthlessly dragged through time towards him. 

Steve brings him his meals, and eats with him. He tells Loki of his various missions, of the repercussions of his interrupted take over of Earth. He tells Loki of his time in the ice after he left. 

Over time, over a very long time, Loki watches him, and learns the differences in him and the ones that came before. He wonders what parts of Steve are the same as the soulmates who died before Loki could grow to know them. He sees those he knew in his movements, in his voice, in the way he looks at Loki. 

Loki would run if he wasn’t so tired.

Steve tells him over breakfast one day that the serum the scientists gave him have made him functionally immortal.

Loki watches him differently from then on.

* * *

Thor and Steve become close. 

Loki watches from the depths of his dark cell as Thor takes away the only thing that has ever been his. Thor brings Loki gifts from Asgard, various trinkets for his cell that he says are from their mother and father but Loki knows that Thor just took them from his old rooms. He also brings gifts for Steve.

It is cruel, he thinks, for Thor to court Steve in front of him. Even he cannot understand the cruelty.

He turns away from both of them and buries himself in his books. He reads of soulmates who love each other above all others, and he _wants_. He does not know why he is fated to suffer so. He remembers his wish for his ashes to be mixed with Sigyn’s and Silas’s and he wonders if Thor would even do that for him. He will be alone, even in death.

His first escape attempt comes after seeing Thor hug Steve. They were at the end of the long, empty hall that led down to Loki’s cell, and they were talking close, heads bowed together. And then, in full view of Loki, Thor embraced his soulmate. He should’ve known that this was what it was. He should’ve known that Thor was only here to make certain that Loki would be alone. Surely this is his punishment for attempting to rule Earth. He can barely believe that Thor would be so cruel, but he feels Odin all over this scheme.

So he schemes himself. He will let Thor have Steve, but he will not be witness to it. He will escape and he will hide where none can find him, and he will die alone, as is his due.

But he cannot escape. They put two bracers on him that react to the magnetic field around his cell, and it sends such a thrum and such a pain through Loki’s head that he shrieks.

He learns there is no hope.

He will be forced to witness as the man who is meant to be his falls in love with his brother.

Loki lays on the bed and thinks of pulling his own eyes out.

* * *

Thor comes to him a while later. In his hand, two small bags. 

They hold the remains of those who were allowed to love him.

Loki sobs, cannot stop it, as Thor gives him Silas and Sigyn. From the other side of the glass, Steve watches, his face blank, his arms crossed over his chest. Loki cannot bear it. Why is he still here? Why does he mock him? He holds the bags to his heart and he wishes he were dead.

Strong arms wrap around his shoulders and he does not fight. Let him die and be with those who cannot be swayed by Thor’s bright smile. Let him die and be with his soulmates who loved him.

He tells Thor that when he dies, for it will be soon, to mix his ashes with theirs. Even as he is a frost giant, his heart is not immune from heartbreak. If he cannot escape, if he cannot leave, then he will die.

The voice that rumbles out of the chest his face is pressed to is not Thor’s voice. Steve tells him that he will not die.

Loki scrambles away from him and snarls at him. Steve holds the bags in his hands and looks at them. 

“These were me,” he says, and his voice is quiet. 

Loki wants to tell him that they were better than him, that they loved him, that they would not betray him as Steve has betrayed him, but he stays quiet. If he begins to speak, he fear he will not stop.

“Tell me about them,” Steve requests, and when Loki only bares his teeth, Thor comes out of the dark and waxes poetic about Sigyn, about how she was so kind, so loving, so smart, so beautiful. He only met Silas a few times, but he tells Steve about how the dwarf was gruff and quiet but bloomed under Loki’s attention.

“How dare you?” Loki hisses. Thor frowns at him and Steve only looks sad. “How dare you speak of them?”

“They loved you as I do,” Thor promises. “We all only wish for your happiness.”

“But you take him from me! They have all left me before, but you pull him away before he can even die.” Loki’s voice does not tremble. He stands before them and pushes his shoulders back and keeps his chin high. 

“Pull me away?” Steve repeats, and he puts the two bags gently on the nearest shelf. He treats the remains of Loki’s soulmates with kindness. 

“You’re _courting_ him,” Loki hisses. “I’ve seen it.”

Thor throws his head back and laughs. Loki recoils. How _dare_ he? How dare he laugh in the face of Loki’s anguish? 

“I court no man,” Thor promises, coming closer, and he grabs Loki by the neck before he can escape. “I have no interest in courting, and especially not one who belongs to you, brother.”

Loki looks between them. But he’d _seen_ it. 

Thor steps back and looks between Steve and Loki. He will give them their space. Steve does not look away from Loki as he promises not to leave until they’d figured everything out.

Loki drops to the bed. Steve pulls up a chair, sits only a foot away from him. He reaches out, puts his hands on Loki’s knees. Even through his leggings, his touch makes Loki shudder. 

When Steve speaks, every voice of those who came before him bleeds through. 

“I have loved you for over 1000 years,” Loki whispers. “You always leave me.”

“Not this time,” Steve says, and his hands burn around Loki’s wrists. It sounds like a promise.

He tells himself he is not fool enough to believe him, but when Loki looks up into those blue eyes that he has loved for so long, he finds himself a fool.

Steve helps him escape.

Steve asks if he truly believes that anyone would choose Thor over him. Loki looks at him in the light of the setting sun and wonders if this time, he will get what he deserves. He looks at Steve Rogers and feels that old and comfortable greediness swell up in his chest. He remembers the jealousy from watching other Aesir with their soulmates and knowing that all of his own are dead in the ground. 

He wonders what they will say now, when they see the man that has been given to him at the end of it all.

He was worth the wait.

Loki looks at his soulmate and kisses him.

* * *

At fifty years together, Loki does not sleep. He waits for the cut in his chest, the tearing out of his heart that comes with the death of his soulmate. It does not come.

Steve still lives. He looks the same as he did when Loki found him in the ice. He is still kind. He still fights for freedom. It looks different now, of course, but always the same cause in the end. Loki often drags him to his castle in Asgard and when Steve is with him for fifty years and has not died, Loki marries him.

Thor visits them often. He has not found his own soulmate, but he does not seem to mind. He tells Loki that he never wanted one. Loki cannot understand that, cannot understand the lack of thrall of belonging solely to one person, of knowing that he is loved more than even his own silver-tongue can describe. But Thor does not seem to care for it. He is a King without a Queen, and he has no desire to change it.

They killed Thanos decades ago. Loki had distracted him while Thor brought Mjolnir down upon him. It was far easier than it should have been.

It takes many more decades for Loki to trust Steve when he says he will not leave him.

One morning, he wakes up and he is not in the bed he fell asleep in.

He is in a vast field, and before him are the soulmates he lost. Each one of them presses their hands to his chest and they promise him that he will never be alone again.

When he wakes again, Steve’s hand is over his heart.

Loki wraps his arms around the man he loves and lets the light inside himself take over. He is made whole after so long. He has never felt this pure contentment before. He will never let go.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please leave feedback! i love kudos and comments 
> 
> follow me:  
> tumblr: @deluxemycroft  
> twitter: @whenhedied


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